#263 | Alex Kaschuta; Subversive Ideas, Fog of War and Changes in Culture

Alex Kaschuta [00:00:00] I don't know, more normalization of things that are now kind of edgy on the internet, as, as they tend to be. They're going to slide into mainstream culture, and they're going to take different other forms while they're being kind of co-opted into, into existing narratives. So, yeah, it's an interesting time to be on the internet. I'm Miriam Hoffman, a full-time college student living in Carbondale, Illinois, and you're listening to the Vance Crow podcast.

Vance Crowe [00:00:26] Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. Today we have a returning guest, Alex Kta. Last time we talked to Alex, she was just getting her podcast started. Her podcast is called Subversive, and it is just that every single one of her guests has an opinion or a perspective on the world that you may not agree with. In fact, you probably won't even like all of what they have to say, but oftentimes, they are pushing the very edges of what social discourse is supposed to be about. And I find it to be fascinating because many of the things that I encounter there, I think at first these are repellent ideas or these are things that I don't even want to engage with. But over time, you start realizing, wait, we're not allowed to talk about those things. Or maybe this is something that we should explore further. So I am really excited to have Alex Kada on If you are a longtime listener to the podcast, you know that we have the Articulate Ventures Network. This is a group of people that love the podcast, and they wanted to have a place where they could get together and discuss it with other people that were also interested in the podcast. But it has grown to be so much more than just that. Now, we hold speaking gyms where people can practice speeches that they have upcoming or get better at being able to do things like introduce themselves or give a toast. And we also do things like movie nights and book clubs, and a circular firing squad where we pick intentionally controversial subjects and have the group get together and take different perspectives and try and argue and discuss these ideas so that way we can push on the frame of what we know only to learn more, and to be exposed to different ideas to make us broader, more interesting people.

Vance Crowe [00:02:05] So if you are enjoying this conversation with Alex Kuchta, you may wanna consider joining the Articulate Ventures Network. You can do that by going to Network dot Articulate Ventures. All right, without further ado, let's head to an interview with my friend Alex Kata. Alex Kata, welcome back to the podcast. Thank

Alex Kaschuta [00:02:26] You for having me back, Vince.

Vance Crowe [00:02:29] Well, long time listeners of the podcast know that you live in Romania, which isn't that far from the Ukrainian Russia conflict. So what is it like in the world where you are right now?

Alex Kaschuta [00:02:40] Yeah, it's surprisingly probably not that different from from Missouri or anywhere in the, in the US it's, it's just enough distance to be permanently scared, but also not enough to actually see any sort of conflict or difference on the street or interacting with people here. You know, there's, there's always kind of, the Russian menace is a thing here. You know, people are not necessarily friendly towards Russia. It's, there's a constant threat in the air. And people, you know, like my family, we, we have a lot of, you know, horror stories about the Red Army kind of historically, a lot of, a lot of family. Lores is quite negative towards the Russians, but that's something to be expected when you live at the edge of an empire who's had claims on the territories around us, or at least in the, in the sphere of influence, because Romania was not part of the Soviet Union proper was never part of Russia proper. But we, we have had dealings with the Russians many times in our history. So I would say probably a bit apprehensive, a bit scared, bombarded by a lot of information, more so from the Ukrainian side, because that seems to be the, the biggest chunk of, of information that exists online. And there's, there's definitely a, a line that needs to be towed in terms of what, what one should think about the conflict. So I would say it is probably very similar to what you, what you hear in, in the West anywhere. You know, essentially we're getting the same social media, we're getting the same Reuters ap, the same people are are talking to us.

Alex Kaschuta [00:04:14] If you're not in on the ground in Ukraine, and even there, you know, you, you would have a very myopic perspective of what's going on locally. It's very, very hard to, to get to grips of what actually is happening, who's attacking who, you know, it's just the fog of war is thick. So, yeah, I'm, I'm probably not, you know, much, much wiser than, than anyone else at this point.

Vance Crowe [00:04:36] Well, I think what you're describing is the exact thing that I'm feeling. And it's funny about the fog of war because when you're in the fog of war, it doesn't feel like it, right? It feels like, oh, I've got a crystal clear view of everything that's going on. And for people that don't know, you run a podcast called Subversive, which really goes to find perspectives that run against the grain. And I have found, while trying to discover what's really going on between Russia and the Ukraine, like you said, there is a very myopic point of view, and there is a, a line that you have to tow here because to not do it means that you're somehow a, a traitor out in the world. What are you hearing is the, are the kind of counter perspectives then the mainstream one that we've heard about what's going on in, in Russia or what, what, what their intents are?

Alex Kaschuta [00:05:23] I mean, the, the, the main counter perspective is that, you know, I I don't think anyone's saying that, you know, you know, very few people are on the side of Russia who are not actual Russians and or interested in some imperial project tied to Russia. A lot of people, I mean, most people see this as an act of aggression. That being said, you know, the people who tend to be more disagreeable about this tend to not be surprised by this. So they tend to have expected the war. They tend to have seen an encroachment of NATO in five successive waves since the 1990s, since an expansion of NATO was promised under, under Helmut coal, you know, that, that NATO would, would stick to East Germany. Well, those, those days are passed. NATO is now and has been at the door of Russia for a long time. And as far as people in Russia, like for example, I've had Anatoly Carlin on the show. He is, he's probably more pro-Russia than, than most people. But, you know, this is this Versa podcast. And I do, that's, that's my purpose to, to, to platform these people. You know, he, his perspective is obviously more, you know, he's someone who's lived in the west, moved back to Russia because he has, you know, he has a Russian soul. He is a Russian, he identifies with Russia. And he essentially, his, his idea was okay, you know, the, the West gave him as much as he could as he, as he, as he wanted. And it was time to, to move back to Russia. So he has a very different perspective from, from what you'll hear in the mainstream. And what he's laid out is not necessarily a justification for the act of aggression.

Alex Kaschuta [00:06:58] It was more of, you know, okay, is, is Putin insane? He does not think that Putin is insane. He's, he has a coherent worldview that he laid out in, in different speeches, you know, that's evolved throughout the years. You know, he used to have used to be more of a, a technocratic perspective about 15, 20 years ago. And now he's slowly moved into a more kind of a multipolar and, and, you know, Russian nationalism perspective that has different characteristics. Like, for example, it's not ethnonationalist, it's, it's a civic nationalism of the Russian, of kind of the, the Russian soul where it's kind of a Russian core, but there's, you know, a multi-ethnic society built around the, the Russian perspective. So there are a lot of people talking about this, for example, there's also Sam Ria, he also has a, a kind of a, a more contrarian perspective on this. It's, it's very easy to be contrarian about this if you have any sort of perspective outside of, you know, no fly zone now. And we need to, we need to, I don't know, in is start regime change in, in Russia or, or things like that. That's kind of, you know, that's, that's pretty much what you're expected to say. Sama also has a perspective that's a little bit off, off the, off the beaten path, just because he, he also understands why this happened or he's, he says, okay, this is, you know, Russia does see NATO expansion as an act of aggression. I mean, you, you can ask yourself the question, okay, could, could Russia join nato? Russia could, could not join nato? Because NATO is essentially an anti-Russia coalition, which has been slowly inching closer to Russia to the point where now, you know, there's the guns are at the door and they're closer and closer to the door.

Alex Kaschuta [00:08:41] And there's also been a lot of involvement from the west. Like for example, you know, a lot, a lot of people now tend to see Ukraine, okay, this is a, a free society at the edge of Russia. You know, the Russians don't like that. They want to, you know, I dunno ha have, have territorial claims over, over the territory and, and historical claims over it. There's a Russian population. It's not just that like a, a country like Ukraine is, is very much either a vassal state of Russia or it's a vassal state of a different, you know, these, these areas between empires are very unstable. They're protectorates, Romania is a protectorate of the West. Now we're in the European Union, you know, is this the, the best long-term plan for Romania? It might be, it might also not be, you know, I'm, I'm someone who's, you know, I'm, I'm documenting the decline of the West in many ways. So, you know, 50, a hundred years from now, you know, it might not be that, you know, our, our allegiances we're, we're the best bet. It's, it's very hard to predict what's going to happen now. Like, for example, if, if China allies with Russia, you know, there's just a lot of energy concerns. There's a lot of, you know, will the petro dollar collapse? There's, there's a lot of things that are happening at the same time, and this context collapse that we're all supposed to be participating in, which is eerily similar to what happened with COVID. Because for example, if you had concerns with lockdown, if you had concerns with, with vaccine mandates, if you had concerns with all of these extremely strident measures, you were, you were called a denier, you will call it, you know, a anti-vaxxer. Like, you know, a, a complete slander for voicing very legitimate concerns, which now, you know, people are saying, oh, actually, yeah, it was pretty legitimate.

Alex Kaschuta [00:10:18] Now it's okay to say that, but now we're, we're seeing the same thing with the Russian War. It's like, okay, you know, we can't have Russian sopranos because, you know, we, they need to be thrown out in the street. Like, you don't teach sevki, you know, Putin shill, everyone's a Putin shill, you know, this is eerily similar and the same people are pushing it. So obviously, my, my hunch is a little, are a little bit up with, with what's going on here, because yeah, I mean, like I said, I really don't have the complete picture, like the, the fog of war is thicker than anyone can, can imagine, even here. So it's, it's very hard to say, you know, I, I wouldn't have a policy prescription for any country, even even in this, in this region. You know, you kind have to wait and see and, and piece together whatever you can from, from different perspectives, from different analysts, from different places. Even people in Russia, you know, like, like crazy Anatoli Carlin. Yeah, maybe, maybe he's, he's worth a, a listen.

Vance Crowe [00:11:15] I think that it was really difficult for me when all the stuff with COVID was going on. I was like, man, mobs are forming so fast here. But that was just one thing. And you might think, well, disease makes people do all kinds of crazy things. And then we watched the Canadian trucker convoy get blown into this, like, oh, these are traitors of their country. And you're like, okay, that doesn't seem right, but, you know, maybe there's something I'm not getting here. And when the Ukraine, Russia thing came out, and now suddenly people are so pro Ukrainian that you can't even bring up other ideas, it really, I think was the most startling of all because it was the third time where there's no, there's no two ways about it. There is a straight line between the what people want you to believe and, and where they, where if you go over that line, you're knocked out. And it, it really has been a very jarring experience for me. I, I find myself really saying like, well, it took me to being in my forties before I was knocked clear of all of my naivety about how much our narratives are controlled.

Alex Kaschuta [00:12:18] Yeah. And it, it feels to me like we're, we're building up to an event, like all of these, you know, past narratives. If we look at, at past wars, like for example, Syria, you know, Libya, ev, every one of these conflicts, Iraq, they had a red line event. And I feel like, you know, obviously the uss position up until this point has been okay, there's not gonna be a direct involvement. I mean, the sanctions are quite violent themselves. They could be seen as an act of war, you know, participating in, in funding armament, even through, you know, third parties could be seen as an act of war. But no direct involvement, no, no boots on the ground for now. But there has always been this moment where, okay, oh, you know, there's a, you know, what was a chemical weapons in Syria, WMDs, there was, you know, the, the Arab Spring, the people wanted it, you know, all of these revolutions that were, you know, very much tied into Western NGOs as well. You know, there's, you know, they're not called color revolutions for, for, for nothing. So there's a lot of, like, the, the CAAs Bei for all of these things has been, you know, this, this little thing that happened. And now we have the, I think it's, it's the massacre, which is, and again, one of these very, you know, foggy events, apparently Russian soldiers, just cold bloodedly massacred 280 people in a, in a village, absolutely horrendous, you know, footage. And, you know, there's, you know, the New York Times, you know, this pumping out stories about this. And this feels like if it's not, you know, the Red Line event, it's being pushed to be something like that. You know, there, there needs to be that, that, that mo that moment.

Alex Kaschuta [00:13:52] So my fear is that if it's not, this is gonna be something else, you know, there's gonna be some event, you know, like the, you know, the picture of the, the, the small boy washed up on the shore, you know, like there's gonna be something that's extremely emotionally salient, extremely horrendous, obviously. And that also carries with it like an, an image that can be replicated and, and, and provided to, to everyone to convince them that, okay, the next step is no fly zone. You know, which sounds, it sounds awesome. It's just like, oh, we're just telling them to, to not fly. No, that's a declaration of war. There's, you can't really stop people from flying without shooting them out of the air. There's not, you know, there's no, no negotiation there. So there's a lot of emotional artillery that's being fired back and forth here on, on both sides, obviously. But it seems that we're not really getting that nutrition propaganda, or maybe I am. 'cause I'm, I'm the crazy person who's actually saying something that, you know, this might be, you know, crazy two sides, Alex, but you know, something fishy is afoot. And I'm not gonna let this, you know, collapse, collapse my narrative if I can help it.

Vance Crowe [00:15:00] A, a amen. I mean, one of the things that scared me the most about actions that the United States has taken is when they've started okaying, giving the thumbs up to seizing property of, of people we're not at war with. And you see the, the general population celebrating this, like, Hey, there was a Russian oligarch who we've never heard of, but you've told me is the second most important person in Russia. And so therefore, if we take his ill-gotten gains and we just, you know, make them our possessions, this is okay. And there was at one point, I haven't followed up on it, where the US government was saying, yeah, well, we may end up bringing back this ability for you to essentially do piracy out on the high seas. You see one of these people that we've targeted, we've determined that they have property that you shouldn't have. You're, you're able to go and take it and seize their property. This, to me, is so insane as to be one of the most dangerous acts you could take, because I have believe in almost no international law. I think there's no agreement that we make between states unless you sign a treaty that says very clearly what I agree to and what that other state agrees to. But there's one that we all have to agree to, and it's the basis of international law, which is pirates are the worst thing that you can have. And anyone that allows piracy is an enemy of ours. But we've now just instituted it. You know, we've now just made that something that's okay. And once you let this out of the bag, now you are incentivizing people to make all sorts of bad actions and to frame things in ways, like you were talking about, that can get out of control so fast.

Vance Crowe [00:16:35] And people are making decisions well before they know anything at all about what happened or why it happened.

Alex Kaschuta [00:16:40] Yeah. And it's, it's essentially a, a permanent state of hysteria, a permanent state of emergency, which is a permanent state of, you know, complete powers to whoever rules. Was this a plan? You know, is this like a cabal of people organizing this? I don't, I don't necessarily think so. Are people profiting from the nature of the technology that enables these things? Like, that enables the George Floyd video to, to circulate everywhere and en rage, you know, a nation that enables, you know, pictures of, of a boy at the, at the shores of the Mediterranean to, you know, open the borders of the, of the eu. You know, this is, this is stuff that people seize on, obviously, because it's possible. And it, and it spreads like wildfire. You don't even have to seed it. You know, these are emotionally salient images. They are often, more often than not of actual horrors in the world, and they are politically important, and they drive policy and they drive everything. You know, like people collapsing on the streets of Wuhan, remember that, you know, that led to a healthy people, million, billions of people, healthy people getting locked down in quarantine. A new use of the word quarantine, like this is, these are all, this is all the outgrowth of this permanent state of emergency that we're put in. Believe me next year we'll have something else, and there's gonna be something else. And

Vance Crowe [00:17:59] That's the state of emergency. You know, the, the gelman amnesia effect, I think is one of the most fascinating concepts because it, what did it says, I think, you know, Alex, is, if you're reading something in the New York Times about a subject you know a lot about, I'm in agriculture, right? I read it and I'm like, this author doesn't know anything. Yes, he's using a language I can understand all the words are in sentences, but the concepts they are articulating are so off as to be, I completely write this off. But then you turn the page and you get to a subject that you don't know anything about, and you're like, oh, that's interesting. Look what they're doing in the Ukraine. Or, oh, look at how the, whatever their water issues that are going on here. And this, to me seems like a perfect example. The the Wuhan thing. I'll never forget the day I stopped doing whatever I was doing and went upstairs and showed my wife the image of people pulling a dead body somewhere in Latin America. And then when the body fell out, they just ran away because they were so afraid of it. And it was like, look, we really do need to take this seriously. You know? And I mean, now we've figured out the government has figured out how to take that, weaponize it on a grand scale so that we're always in this, in this, yeah. Hypertension about everything.

Alex Kaschuta [00:19:11] Yeah. It's someone on, on Twitter described it as, as, as do something is, and it was a really good explanation. Like extreme, you know, extreme liberality in in means extreme, you know, extreme safety is with extreme liberality in, in, in the means used to, to achieve that safety is so no, no expense spared. And it is essentially, you know, like for example, you could, you could observe, like let, let's say that all of the narratives are true about what's going on in Russia, complete active aggression, surprise, you know, attacking, you know, out of the blue, a you know, massacres everything, that what happens there and what we should do about it are two different things. People really can't see that, you know, with COVID as well, serious disease. Absolutely. Does it kill, it kills, you know, it's worse than the flu. 10 times worse than the flu. What do we do about it is not instantly tied to the gravity of the situation. Like there's, there's, there's not, there's no reason to, you know, instigate World War iii, even if things are bad, there might be ways to deescalate, there might be ways to offer a person an off ramp, even if, even if that guy is a bad guy, you know? Whereas like, there's no more real politic at all in, in permanent hysteria. It's all like, okay, who, who are the Jews and who are the Nazis in the situation? We need to know so that we can have the most insane response to them, you know, so that we, you know, we need to get rid of the soprano. We need to, you know, never, never speak the language again.

Alex Kaschuta [00:20:43] We need to, you know, banish, you know, Voldemort from, from the scene, you know, this is childish, this is childish, and we've, we've reduced politics, health policy, you know, things that are really important, you know, trade policy, energy policy, all of these things that really keep the lights on, literally keep food on the table to childsplay. Is this, like I said, is this directed from above? There might be an ingredient of that. Is this used by people, you know, the fact that media and the, the substrate that we have, the technology that we have enables these mimetic waves to take, to take hold and to be politically salient. Yes. People use these, these things and in these phenomena, so it's,

Vance Crowe [00:21:26] Yeah. And at the time when people are at some of their weakest moments, right? I don't know how it's going in Romania, but we are watching inflation go wild here. Yes. And the, the, it's that this is fundamentally the most important issue going on, which is how can you take the resources that you have and what will they be able to purchase in the future? How much is your work being stripped away? And the value of that, and this is not a robust discussion at all in the United States. Every once in a while it comes up and then they say, oh, those dastardly Russians, look what they've done to the price of our gas. When you don't realize like, no, this is, this is the price of your eggs. This is the price of your meat, which has almost nothing at all to do with Russia and the Ukraine. I mean, certainly you could tie some amount of a percent to it, but nothing on the scale of, of actual events that are going to impact people, not just for five years or 10 years, but potentially for generations.

Alex Kaschuta [00:22:19] I mean, if we remember this is exactly what happened with COVID, you know, like, oh, jobs were lost because of COVID. You know, li you know, lives were lost even in hospitals because of COVID. It was essentially because of COVID measures. That's the, the little missing part that people didn't, didn't explain, because it's very hard to, you know, be able to take responsibility for, for all the extreme things. You know, people, it's easy to be, you know, if, if this is the headline thing that we're all concerned about the current thing, COVID, people who die of COVID obviously are important because they're tied to the current thing. People who die because they didn't get cancer treatment or dialysis or, you know, didn't, didn't have a job or, you know, just, you know, wasted away went homeless or things like that. Not tied to COVID. Well, they are not that important. So it's, it's, it's one of those things that's, you know, the, the media magnifying glass travels with the narrative, you know, everything outside of it is not important.

Vance Crowe [00:23:15] The, and the, the idea that seems to be lost on people, that once you hand over power to the government, right? In my small county, St. Louis County, there would, it would've been unthinkable that the county executive could lock everyone in their houses. It would've been a thought that it would, he wouldn't, it would've been preposterous. They would never have been elected had they said, I have this power. But then when people got scared, they gave them that power. And now to wrench that away from their hands is nearly impossible. In fact, they're now codifying into law how much of that power they have and what you have to do, not to, to exert it, but actually to take it away. And this is happening on every single, you know, whether it's the local level or up on the national level or even internationally, is that once you give that power to those governments, they never give it back.

Alex Kaschuta [00:24:03] Exactly. I mean, lockdown is now a legitimate policy. You know, it's, it's worked before in the sense that it's worked for the government that people have, you know, they, they did not revolt in, in any significant capacity to actually take down the government. So yes, it works from their perspective. So expect, you know, climate lockdowns, you know, any sort of, you know, maybe the seasonal flu needs a lockdown, oh God,

Vance Crowe [00:24:23] Climate lockdowns. Oh God, that would be absurd.

Alex Kaschuta [00:24:26] It's now in the toolbox.

Vance Crowe [00:24:30] So let's talk a little bit about how you get outside of this narrative, because you have done something really extraordinary. I love checking in on your podcast because you somehow are going out into the edges of the, of the internet, and you're finding those ideas that you're not allowed to talk about, and you're framing them in a way that so far has not gotten you booted off of different channels. So let's first talk about like, how did you get into doing this subversive podcast, and, and where are these places that you hunt to find these very interesting characters?

Alex Kaschuta [00:25:00] Mo mostly on Twitter, I have to say. I, I, I got a little bit of clout on Twitter at one point because I, I just went on Twitter and, and started engaging with these spaces where people were speaking, you know, interesting things. And I made some friends in, in, in these circles. And essentially that was kind of the, the, the first building block to this. Now I have guests from, from all over the place, but I would say still the bulk is, you know, people that I'm mutuals with on Twitter, or people that I know have something interesting to say. It's, it's a, a bit of a, kind of a demonic abyss as well, in the sense that it really does suck you in. But it's also a wonderful place where there's still quite a lot of freedom, especially for, you know, anonymous accounts, which for a lot of people are kind of burner accounts, you know, if you respond every time, you know, and then you get a little bit more opsec and things like that. And then you essentially keep saying things until you respond again and, and things like that. So that's, that's, that's how it works. So that's mostly where I source my subversives. How did I not get booted off yet? I mean, beats me, I think a little ingredient is that I'm not, I'm not in any, I'm not, you know, tied into any institutional place that, you know, where I would be, you know, a, a liability so that people could, you know, attack, attack the institution rather than me. I live in, in, you know, semi-rural Romania, like a, in a, in a, you know, city in Romania, it's not even like, no one's ever heard of it.

Alex Kaschuta [00:26:36] It's, it's easier, I think, to say these things when you are at the fringes of the empire, rather than, I don't know, tied into, I'm, I'm not really keen to get invited to any dinner parties. I have nothing to lose. I literally am nobody. So it's much easier, you know, what are you gonna, what are you gonna take from me? I mean, yeah, tell me my PayPal maybe, or things like that, which, you know, it's, it's quite, it's quite possible and maybe even probable, luckily there's, you know, multiple platforms. Some cater to some, some un, you know, nefarious people like me. But yeah, it's, there's always, there's always a risk. But I think it's, it's harder to, to get me with anything, you know, there's, and now I think there, yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:27:16] People that haven't read 1984 recently forget that that majority of people in 1984 are free. They're just the, the people that are not a part of the inside party or the, or the, you know, the people trying to climb up that mountain. And I think back to my days when I was, I, I was invited several times to go to different Clinton Global Initiative events, and you see these eager young people that would, you know, cut off their arm or give away their ability to have children or whatever to be able to climb up this mountain. And they are the ones that are oftentimes the most tied down. But there is a blast area. Just y just last week we had on the podcast a guy named Sean Newman, and just the very act of interviewing a guy at the Canadian trucker convoy got him booted off of YouTube forever, permanently banned.

Alex Kaschuta [00:28:06] Oh, really? Yeah. I mean, things like that happen. I mean, I've had a few videos taken off some very, very critical COVID vaccines actually, which I kind of understood. But it, it's interesting 'cause I have the full length podcast on YouTube, and that wasn't taken off. It was just the specific video where I extracted the specific criticism of, of vaccine. So essentially the content is still there, but I think they probably do some search in the text or in the show notes where, you know, the ti if the titles vaccine related, I take it down automatically. So I think that's the worst that's happened to me. But I also think it's, it's a question of positioning. Like, you know, I'm, I really don't cater to, you know, a left wing audience. I've always said, okay, I'm, I'm right wing, I'm a pariah, you know, I, I really, I have, I I am not competing with you for any sort of social status in, in the kind of left wing or, or global hierarchy. I'm, I've got, I'm, I'm in my corner here in my hovel recording podcast with, with nefarious people. You just, just leave us alone. I'll leave you alone. We have, we don't need to interact. And it seems to be, you know, it seems to work pretty, pretty well up until this point

Vance Crowe [00:29:13] Early on in your podcast. I can remember when you did a podcast, I think it was with HP Lovecraft, and you digitized his voice so that that way it couldn't be understood. You couldn't pick out what was his voice like and, and figure out who he was. And I remember thinking like, well, that seems like overkill. In fact, I think I even wrote you about it, like being like, oh, that's, but now fast forward a year, and I think actually not that bad. And my opinion of doing anonymized things has really changed over time. I used to be full scale against anonymous quotes, anonymous attribution. But you begin to see why that happens, because if people wanna have some, some normal part of a life, they, they maybe need, do, need to have burner accounts and stay anonymous.

Alex Kaschuta [00:29:59] Yeah. I think, you know, these are people with a lot to lose. And there are also people who say things that maybe, you know, face posters even like myself would, would not be able to say just because it's, it's very risky. And, you know, sometimes as a, as a podcaster who really wants to be, you know, sourcing from the, from the spiciest pots, you have to have anonymous accounts on, and the voice modification modifier is yeah. Is necessary for, for a few of my guests. I mean, I've had, I'm actually another episode's coming up with a, with a voice modifier. And I also think it adds to kind of the trust that people have in the podcast. Like, I, I really have not had any, you know, issues with people, you know, security wise, I had lots of anonymous people on who had their normal voices on, you know, not necessarily vo worried to have some so-called voice docs where, you know, people might listen to podcasts and, and realize, ah, it's my neighbor, or, yeah, I don't know exactly how this, how this happens, or I'm sure there's software for to do this now. I'm being very technically naive. But yeah, so I think some people actually have a different public persona, so they, they might, you know, be speaking on other podcasts in a different capacity or have a, a, a public facing role or something. You know, my, one of the, you know, zero HP Lovecraft might be Elon Musk or something like that. You know, that's kind of my weird, weird feeling. Or, you know, Peter Thiel, you know, though, I don't, don't think Peter's that concerned about his reputation. Yeah. So there's, there's, there's definitely that, and I, I don't necessarily encourage it.

Alex Kaschuta [00:31:33] I mean, I'm, I'm posting with my face as well, because I mean, it does, it does help in terms of building a platform people trust, you know, the fact that I'm, I'm here, I'm putting myself out there, you know, it helps being a woman. I, I won't lie, I guess it's, it's, it's extra interesting, especially being speaking about things that people don't really address usually. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it is different. And I do, I do even, I tend to censor myself a little bit in terms of, you know, you know, I'm not gonna go, I'm not gonna go charging a machine gun nest if I can help it, if I know that, okay, if I say this, this is going to take me off, and it was going to rob me of the opportunity to say maybe more, I don't know, straussian formulations of the same thing, you know, a bit further down the line, which some people might understand, some people might, might not. So I don't know if this, if this makes sense, but yeah, you kind of try to play it a little bit. Cool. Even if you're in these waters,

Vance Crowe [00:32:28] Why do you think being a woman changes the way people interact with you?

Alex Kaschuta [00:32:34] It's just, it's just a, a, a different vibe. I mean, I'm not saying that, you know, I'm like some super attractive woman trying to, you know, it is just the fact that, you know, it's, it's, it's something, I dunno, maybe more pleasant to look at, you know, I'm not like a, you know, neck beard guy in a, in a basement somewhere,

Vance Crowe [00:32:49] You know,

Alex Kaschuta [00:32:49] Not that you would be, you also very handsome men, obviously, you know, I'm sure that that helps you as well with, with reach for your podcast. You know, these are things that, you know, people don't tend to, to talk about, but it really does help, you know, to have a, a friendly, smiling, approachable face or, you know, you know. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:33:08] I think that's why I like your podcast. You know, I was, I was listening to a couple over the weekend and you say the things that everybody knows, but you're not really supposed to say or you're not really supposed to bring up. And I think that one of the things that makes you unique, not just the, the fact that you're a woman in a space that isn't very, that doesn't have very many women, is you have a sort of detection mechanism for being able to figure out what is it that people aren't allowed to say? How can I say it in a way

Alex Kaschuta [00:33:38] That isn't gonna just, it's auction? No, I'm kidding. I don't think I'm autistic, but there's, there's something wrong with me. Don't worry.

Vance Crowe [00:33:46] So I, I think in this, in your ability to spot those things you're not allowed to say and yet still say them in a way that doesn't alienate people, that probably gives you a view on larger culture. What do you think are changes to culture that are happening that people, most people the normies don't fully realize yet?

Alex Kaschuta [00:34:04] Well, I mean, I think maybe I'm being a bit hopeful here because there's always the kind of echo chamber effect. I do think there is a, a bit of a, a, a, a preference cascade held of happening at the top. You know, like, like a lot of people in my sphere, I kind of subscribe to this, this elite theory, which is kind of the opposite of, of populism where, you know, the, the world essentially run by the preferences of small elites or very powerful minorities that kind of tend to sway public opinion. They, you know, trends and, and even in politics or, or things like that. And I think that it, it might have quite a lot of impact. Like I feel like a, a lot of people in the elite, you know, like you were describing, there are a lot of people who'd cut off a hand to go to like a whatever globalist meeting, you know, Clinton Foundation soiree or something like that, that I feel like that attraction to those spaces is, is waning and there's an attraction to other spaces that is waxing just because the, the lies and the, the amount of untruth that has built up in the kind of old elite structure, like the, the, the number of untruth that you need to ascribe to, to, to become one of the elite at this moment is immense. Which on the one hand helps you as an elite because it's such a baroque structure that only someone with a lot of free time and a lot of fancy education could, can learn, you know, that that helps in one way. But on the other end, if you're like someone who's actually intelligent and curious about the world and interested in, in, in, you know, things that, you know, might be a little bit counter-cultural, you're, you're not necessarily going to wanna, wanna go that direction.

Alex Kaschuta [00:35:47] So you're, you might be more interested in other meme plexes or, or directions. So I think we're probably at a, at a bit of an inflection point. There's, there's a lot of interesting things happening. You know, I mean, hopefully my podcast is one of those interesting things, and I see a lot more, you know, young people coming over to me. I mean, I've, I've actually been to, to a conference where I spoke recently, which is kind of strange and real to one, be invited and two have like lots of younger people, like, like early twenties, you know, up to thirties, come to me and say, oh, you know, I love your podcast. I even signed autographs. Like, that's insane. And it's, yeah, mostly the young people, the older people have never heard of me. They think I'm some, you know, who's this woman who invited her, but it's, yeah, it's, it's heartening to see, and a lot of people who are like in student organizations or, or some, you know, strivers in some capacity, you know, they're ambitious people, but they're not the people who would rather go to the, you know, sores at, at the Clinton household. So, yeah, I, that, that's kind of hopeful for me. I mean, other trends, you know, my friend, default friend, she, she was highlighting the fact that we're gonna have a huge backlash to sex positivity. Like we're, we're about to see a lot of more books written, you know, movies, a lot more cultural cachet for people who are more prudish rather than, you know, this whole sex work is work, you know, women are, have the same desires as men.

Alex Kaschuta [00:37:21] You know, you need to check things off your sex bucket list, cosmopolitan style, you know, you know, yeah. Pursuit of the opposite sex. Yeah. I think that's a big trend. I don't know, more normalization of things that are now kind of edgy on the internet as, as they tend to be, they're going to slide into mainstream culture and they're going to take different other forms while they're being kind of co-opted into, into existing. So yeah, it's an interesting time to be on the internet.

Vance Crowe [00:37:51] Yeah. I can remember when Trump was running for the first election, and this is when Milo Opolis kind of hit the scene, and this was just absolutely insane. And I, I remember watching him be hoisted on the shoulders of a bunch of frat guys, you know, carrying, you know, a gay man dressed, you know, and very flamboyantly onto the stage and me thinking, ah, okay, culture is definitely changing. And I think it did. But then COVID had this kind of like, pullback effect that is hard to describe. I I was just talking with a teacher the other day who said one of the things he didn't expect would happen during COVID is when they came back to school, there is this a percentage of students, about 10% that became the strongest enforcers of people wearing masks. He's like, it wasn't very long before I got reported because I wasn't wearing my mask when, when doing some lessons, and all of a sudden you had kids going and reporting on me, which like, woo, that sent a, a chill down my spine. So I, on one hand, am I'm hopeful that there's like a kickback to this kind of pendulum swing, but I also have, have been around long enough to know that the last time I thought it was coming, it didn't come.

Alex Kaschuta [00:39:03] Yeah. And I think probably the, the biggest meta trend here is that there is going to be further fracturing in these kind of mimetic tribes. Like the fact that, you know, the internet lets you self-select what type of culture you want to, you want to receive. And it kind of lets you sort yourself into different groups by temperament, by taste, by whatever, you know, by whoever's influencing you. And, you know, you can see that I guess in, in this class, you know, you had the 10% of kids who were extremely, you know, scared of COVID might have something to do with, with their household. You know, maybe their parents were very frightened of the virus or whoever. Maybe they're consuming some sort of, you know, scare media and on social media or something like that. Maybe an influencer was very into COVID. You never know exactly what it was. And then you have this kind of very intransigent minority in the classroom, you know, and they tend to impose, impose their values up on, on the other people because yeah. You know, they're entran and especially when it, when it comes to, to hygiene norms, you know, people tend to be easy to, they, they fold easily with these things because you don't want to be seen as a disease vector or dirty or, you know, something like that. So it's, it's much easier to defer to the highest standard in hygiene because you don't wanna be seen like the guy who, you know, picks his nose or is some, some, some sort of, you know, pariah because of that. So these things tend to, to cascade much faster than other things. So yeah, I can see that, you know, because, because there's gonna be a lot of fracturing, you're gonna see more of these in transition minorities in different groups imposing like very strong values up on the other kids.

Alex Kaschuta [00:40:40] And you probably can see this with, you know, trans identity as well. Like, there's huge social contagion in these things, especially during, with teenage girls and things like that. You know, small and transgender minority completely believes in, you know, whatever transgender ideas were coming piping in hot for the internet. And then they become, you know, kind of the, the core promoters of this ideology. And then obviously the other girls tend to yeah, gravitate towards it. 'cause it's very strong. Like a lot of these plexes are very morally very strong. They make huge moral claims about the nature of reality, about, you know, what men and women are, things like that. They're very fascinating. They're, they're meaning giving, you know, you know, transcending your gender. That's, that's what, what a project, what a, what a fascinating thing to do, especially for like maybe a slightly anxious or depressed or unsure teenage girl that's, you know, that's, that's a great thing to, to be doing with your friends. Maybe, you know, why, why not? There's a collective dimension to it too. So there's, there's going to be a lot of these strange or strange, maybe not strange for people who, who see this from the outside, but a lot of social contagion, a lot of these phenomena that kind of originate on the internet and then propagate like wildfire in, in, in the world.

Vance Crowe [00:41:59] Yeah. My buddy was talking about this issue in, in school about how he's like, basically there's a different flavor, whatever school you go to, the, whatever the transgender challenge that's going on in his school, he was saying they were non-binary students, and it was a group of girls, and he described it as the, the mean girls now had a victim card that they could play, and that they were playing it against really some of the most vulnerable of the young heterosexual boys that were like, he'd be like, they're seventh grade boys, but they're the shy ones. They're the ones that don't wanna play dodgeball. And now these kids are being targeted by these mean girls, and he is like, it's bullying on a scale that's really hard to, to push back on because as a teacher, if I step in now, I'm violating victims that are just trying to, you know, help other people understand the, the way around the world. And he was like, and this herein lies a big challenge because then you, you as the teacher are worried about, am I going to have the finger pointed at me for, you know, breaking some norm or mistreating some victim and how quickly that can cascade out of control. And I was thinking like, wow, how, how do you ever get out of this cycle unless culture itself goes out of that cycle?

Alex Kaschuta [00:43:15] Yeah. And I think this is a, a, a big problem that I have with, you know, people who are, who are nominally right wing or nominally conservative. Like we, we, we end up having to haggle over peanuts. Like, you know, when should girls get mastectomies? Should it be 16 or 18? Should they be of age when they, you know, start hormone treatment? You know, is there, you know, can children block puberty and things like that. Very few people are right wing enough to say, no, we're not having any of these, you know, women are women, men are men, you know, this sounds absolutely insane. You know, you're, you're a denier of, of whatever. But this has completely like, just completely railroaded, you know, everyone because it's like, okay, they've, they've pushed it to 90% and now we're haggling over the last 10%. Like this is a, this is a philosophical question about the nature of man, and it's, they're, they're acting like it's settled. Yeah, of course. You know, men can, can transcender their sex, you know, if they put on a wig and some nice makeup, you obviously, they, they somehow, their essence transforms into a woman, you know, this, this, this sounds very spicy to most people now that it's like, okay, are you, I don't know, denying trans lives or something like that. There's all sorts of very heavy emotional language tied to resistant towards this, you know, very philosophical debate. And you know, I, my response is I'm, yeah, I mean, we haven't even had this debate. It's all about, you know, who gets the hormones, you know, who, who's, who gets the, when, when, when should they be trancing?

Alex Kaschuta [00:44:46] You know, it's, it's insane. Like, yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:44:51] Yeah. You've already jumped past where the philosophical argument is, and now you're talking about the specifics. Exactly.

Alex Kaschuta [00:44:56] I mean, thank you marketplace of ideas. Like what type of marketplace is this, where it's literally just us haggling over de details of your ideas.

Vance Crowe [00:45:06] And people forget that gender itself, like in every major religious text, this is one of the very, very first things that people address. And now you could come and say, Hey, you know, as a modern society, we should be checking on these things that we were just handed, right? Received wisdom may not be the right answer, but it's, it's not like people treat it as though we've just discovered some like magical knowledge that nobody else had for thousands and thousands of years. Or even if they did, they were shoehorned or pressed or oppressed into keeping these narratives that aren't true and we can just throw them off. And certainly any kind of culture change that's as fundamental as messing with the first few lines of the Bible are, are, are major culture changes,

Alex Kaschuta [00:45:55] Especially if it's, you know, supposed to go under the radar. We shouldn't even talk about the fact that it's messing with the first few lines of the Bible. And, you know, the fact that most conservatives, maybe, maybe not most conservative, but most conservatives in the spotlight, you know, people who are like maybe in, in the GOP and who are angling to get to certain dinner parties, you know, they're essentially, you know, people who are still kind of within the, the liberal frame and they're talking to the same people. They're maybe in Washington, they're going to dinner with the same, you know, group of people and they kind of want to be, you know, maybe two cliques more conservative than whatever's on the table now. And that's not conservatism. I mean, if you're just conserving the liberalism from two weeks ago, you know, no, thank you. I really don't wanna be a conservative then. And that's why, you know, people like me call themselves right wing because conservatism, this is not, this is, you know, tabular rasa. We don't want the liberalism from 10 years ago. It really doesn't help us. So I think, you know, that's, that's kind of interesting. That's what's also interesting about the people that I have on my show. Like, I think that's kind of an implicit assumption. Like, you know, this is, these are not GOP talking points. We're not talking about who's getting hormones at what age, you know, we, we try to get to, you know, the, the root of philosophical issues about principles, values, you know, what is, what is a good regime, what is good leadership? What is, you know, is is authority legitimate? You know, things like that, which, you know, are, are, are questions that supposedly have been settled a very long time ago, maybe by the, the founders of, of the United States or, you know, even, even antiquity.

Alex Kaschuta [00:47:31] But many people don't think about them at all. You know, like what is freedom? What is, what is liberalism? You know, this is the system that we have, we've been living in it for, you know, since, since before we were born. And most people don't understand what exactly, you know, it is how it functions, you know, checks and balances, which, which ones who's who rules, actually, that's a, a good question. Like who, who is in charge? So yeah, that's kind of,

Vance Crowe [00:47:55] And most of the things, the fundamental issues that you're describing are, were settled so long ago that we don't even have parents or grandparents that experienced the world without these things. So, you know, the, i I talk about the freedom of speech thing, right? Like, you know, people know what it's like to have some of your speech curtailed, but not like what they had in the 16th century where you literally were not allowed to blaspheme against God otherwise they could literally kill you, you know? Or they could is confine you to a prison on a ship for, for years and years and years just for doing minor infractions. But like, it's been gone so long that we assume just like somebody that's saying, or are we right on the cusp of getting rid of war? Like, have we become so modern that we no longer need this like, old affectation of the way people settled problems. And it's like, ah, these things were put in there because things were so bad that they had to eventually come together and everybody be like, Hey, we really do mean you should be able to bear arms. We really do mean you should protect free speech at, at all costs. But if you don't even know anybody that knows anybody that experienced the world without it, it's very difficult to wrap your mind fully around it.

Alex Kaschuta [00:49:08] Yeah. And I feel like, you know, there's a certain level of comfort that people have grown accustomed to, like, you know, this whole concept of, you know, it's, it's the end of history and what does that entail? Is it the end of war? Is it the end of disease? Is it the end of, I don't know, whatever, even, you know, the whole conversation about inequality. Is it the end of need? Is it the end of billionaires? You know, is it's uncomfortable for me that, you know, the fact that there is, Jeff Bezos is out there on his yacht, it just, you know, kills me inside and I'd really like him to not be there and I'd like a more equitable society, even if, you know, most people have, you know, food, shelter, whatever, you know, the, the very basics of life, the idea that there's huge inequality is, is is jarring to me. Maybe that's a, that's a reasonable request, but what exactly, you know, is the stuff of life that's, you know, you know, is a, a world without war, even imaginable is a world without disease, I mean, is a world without death, because death is on the table now as well. It's, you know, there's a lot of conversations in terms of transhumanism. There's, you know, longevity research, you know, do we even have to die cry cryonics? You can just, you know, put yourself in a vat and, you know, maybe get frozen for 500 years. And then reanimated when medicine is, is, you know, at a, at a future state and all your problems will be solved. There's a lot of conversation uploading yourself into the cloud or whatever, you know, substrate. That's, that's also a conversation. So, you know, I think there's, there's kind of this perception, I tie it to the kind of the, the, the liberal metaphor of what it is to be a human.

Alex Kaschuta [00:50:46] You know, this individual that's somewhere behind the eyes, you know, making decisions in a, in a rational way, you know, taking in information, deciding for himself. And then obviously if, if you're just kind of like a, this ethereal thing behind your eyes, your body is a meat suit, you can exchange it, you know, you can be a man or a woman, you know, it makes sense. You can upload yourself to whatever, because, you know, you're essentially just an essence that's wearing this body. So this whole metaphor lets you think in that way, lets you decide that, okay, you know, if if my body's not necessarily, you know, why, why can't we just hack the world? You can hack politics. You know, there, there might be, there, there has to be a, an algorithm for politics to just solve politics, right? You, you should solve war. Why should we have war? Why should we have need? Why should we have inequality? Why should we have these things that have been with us since the dawn of time and are part of, part and parcel of what it, what it is to be human in, in a collective? Why, why should you have parents, you know, there's, you know, there's surrogacy. You could just, you know, you know, go to Ukraine and maybe get a child from someone, or there's different ways of, of negotiating this. So there's, there are, you know, essentially this, this, this metaphor kind of spawns this, this perspective that we are just, we're just one step away from, from solving everything for, for ourselves and, and on every level.

Vance Crowe [00:52:14] Yeah. And we better get the philosophical part of it down before we actually do the physical challenge of living forever or getting rid of war. The, the big cultural change that I think has snuck up on people, and it's very difficult to talk about is, you know, we've dealt with a, a concept called bear branch theory for a long time. This is when there are many, many men, more men than there are women, and they can't get married. So they don't, they, they're out of the gene pool. And we know that if that balance swings too wildly out of control, you have things like banditry, people joining giant mobs, wars happen. This has happened, you know, all over the Middle East Asia. This is something that you can actually fairly clearly chart what happens, but we haven't had the situation that we have right now in the United States. More than 50% of women over the age of 35 don't have children. This is such a categorical change to culture that nobody is talking about. But you think about the, the, the change that that is to culture. You now have women that have presumably a lot more resources because they're not spending them on children. They've been able to stay in the workforce, the, you know, whatever their political leanings are, that they have more time and energy to be able to put towards those things. Where do you think this goes in a culture where more than 50% of the women don't have children?

Alex Kaschuta [00:53:41] I mean, it's, it's a clear extinction path and it simply is, you know, there's, I mean, children, the way they're, they're perceived right now by the rational individual behind the eyes driving the meat suit. They're a cost center. They're a place where, you know, you, if they're kind of almost like a consumption luxury, you know, if you can afford one and if you're really so inclined, you might have one or you might get one through whatever means. So it's, it's, it's, it's not necessarily part of the natural life path. It's very much an, an option. And it is an expensive option. Like if you want, you know, the, the full option child with the, you know, good schools and the nice clothes and, you know, whatever accessories you want to purchase for, for the child, and especially also, you know, to, to fit in with the other children who also have good schools and nice clothes and whatever ex, you know, accessories they have, you know, you really have to, I don't know, what was it, $250,000 or something, you know, better, better be prepared to pay up, you know, probably less in Romania, but, you know, it depends, depends what social circles you're, you're angling to, to, to get into. It's, I can understand why people are, are not keen to, to, to jump on that. You know, they, in, in, let's say in medieval times, you know, people used to have as many children as God gave them. You know, there wasn't really, you know, there are probably ideas, more primitive ideas about contraception. There are ways to not have children, but now essentially, contraception is on demand.

Alex Kaschuta [00:55:13] Abortion is on demand. Most places, you know, very much everything's very family planning oriented. Marriage is not the purpose of life, you know, and children don't help around the house. You know, they're not, they're not adding to the household. They're not needed. They're definitely not needed. They need you, you don't need them. You don't need them for, you know, alliances with other families. You'll need them to, to pass on property. You know, they get their own property, you know, isn't that what, what boomer parents told us, you know, make your own money. They're essentially just, you know, for a lot of people who, who live the, the rational individual lifestyle where the, the point is to find yourself be authentic and accumulate experiences and then you die. There really is no point to having children. They're essentially a financial burden. And, you know, they might give you some, some, some happiness, but there's no transcendent value in, in having children if you don't believe in something transcendent, which I think, you know, a lot of people are gravitating towards more maybe classical, you know, religious teachings and, and more traditional forms of life. Because especially if you, if you go through the motions with being the rational individual, if you go, you know, have the experiences, if you have the career at one point, you really do realize that you know what exactly, you know, maybe you play out your life, you know, how many promotions, you know, how many Nepalese restaurants can I, can I put under my belt until I feel like, you know, I've had the experiences bungee jumping or what, what is it that that should be the thing that that makes my life complete?

Alex Kaschuta [00:56:48] And then you realize, yeah, no, there's, there's quite a lot of anxiety in, in, in that, you know, in that what's, what's it called, the hedonic treadmill. You know, you run, you run and run faster and faster, and there really isn't anything at the end of it. You're just more exhausted every day. So yeah, I think that's, I'm rambling, but yeah, I think, I think that's my point. Maybe.

Vance Crowe [00:57:13] Well, I think I, it was a very interesting thing in your Blake Masters interview. So he's running for US senate out of Arizona, but you guys had a, a very candid conversation if he becomes a senator, that that was a, either way, it was a great inverse in conversation between you and him. But if he becomes a senator, that will be a very interesting mark along his history. And one of the things that you guys were talking about was consumerism on the left has really been considered a faux pa. You don't wanna be a consumer, it's that you're not making money so that that way you can accumulate goods or houses or, or products. But instead, it is this concept that you should be out there pursuing experiences and trying to travel and, and soak in all this world. I had never really thought about it, but that was a sort of clever slight of hand that happened in the accumulation of wealth, and you should give over your youth to working professionally and having these experiences. That was very insightful.

Alex Kaschuta [00:58:17] Yeah. And, and in a sad way, like the, the second you commoditize something, it, it really robs it of a lot of its essence, doesn't it? Like, you know, you know, if, if, if you look at like the, the travels of like a, you know, naturalist in the 18 hundreds, like, I don't know, Alexander Ron Humboldt and, you know, adventurers on the high sea and, you know, meeting exotic people, that's a d completely different type of travel. And I can see the romanticism and everything in that, you know, hump jumping on like a lowcost airline to be like the five millions person to go to Barcelona this, this month, and eating at, you know, the same chain restaurants and the same things and, you know, waiting in line for, for two hours to see this beautiful house by Gaudi. But it's now, you know, they're another, you know, thousand people in there with you. It's just a completely different type of experience. And though, you know, they're both called travel and they're both, you know, supposed to be culturally enriching. You're essentially just doing essentially the same things that you do in, in, you know, a different metropolis of, of the world, because they all seem to, to kind of converge in what they look like and what they feed you and what, you know, what the, what the vibe is. And you know, it's, you know, is it actually enriching? What exactly are you participating in? You know, so there's, yeah, there just, there's that layer to it, you know, like the experiences themselves have turned into, into, into products, you know, there's, there's, what's that called? Reduced marginal return after a certain point with any sort of things like thing like this.

Alex Kaschuta [00:59:50] And I feel like for, for most categories we've reached that point. Like there's, you know, how much more enjoyment are you gonna get from that? And, you know, even enjoyment in itself, you know, is is that the point of life? That's the question.

Vance Crowe [01:00:03] Yeah. I mean, as a person, like, I did a ton of traveling and I lived all over the world. I was in the Peace Corps, I worked as a deckhand on a ship, and I was just telling my wife, to your point, the diminishing marginal returns of continuing to travel relative to spending an afternoon teaching my daughter the names of the flowers outside is, is just not comparable. But it's one of those things that had somebody tried to tell me this when I was younger, there's no possible way I could have understood it. And there's something in our culture that I think used to be transmitted by the fact that you didn't have kids in daycare, right? It was families taking care of, of kids, and you were around it a lot more. But, you know, a lot of people are not around kids and they're not in a community. And if you are going to have kids, you do have to participate in this larger kind of weird economic system of, of daycares and how to get to work. And I mean, in order for any of this to change, there would have to be such profound changes to culture that I think it could only come at the, at the end of a crisis, at the end of a, of a ma that no one would choose to do. You would only do it if you had to.

Alex Kaschuta [01:01:13] Yeah, I think that's kind of the, the, the sad truth at the bottom of all of this is that, you know, the, the family's splitting apart, you know, the fact that there are no more intergenerational families and you know, the, you can't really rely on your grandparents to take care of your kids and, you know, your, your brothers, you know, live maybe countries away and, and things like that. This is, these are all outgrowths of a certain type of prosperity. Like we really don't need our family. Way back in the day we lived in intergenerational families because there was one house, and that was a house where everyone lived. And, you know, you would do, you know, you would cook together and people would take care of each other because there was a need. Now we have enough prosperity to each have each, each our own houses, and we have enough prosperity to hire, you know, a Hungarian slash Honduran depending on your location, you know, nanny to, to, to help with the children. I mean, if not, you know, there's always a state stepping in, you know, there's, there's state sponsored daycares, you know, if, if the market can't handle it, there's a state, you know, but it's not, it's not family anymore. You know, everyone's minding their own business because that, you know, that's essentially kind of what, what, you know, liberal market, market economy and everything has permitted us to do it is also our revealed preference. This is what people tend to want to do because you could, you know, you could move in with your grandparents, you could move in with your family. You know, people tend to not want to do that because yeah, it's obviously there's tensions, there's, there's friction. When you live with other people, it's much easier, you know, that's why you see, even with applications, like people don't even wanna call you on the phone anymore.

Alex Kaschuta [01:02:45] It's all very frictionless. You know, you can just click a button and someone shows up at your door, silently, takes you to the airport, doesn't even talk to you, your, you know, no, no hands delivery on your Uber Eats or whatever. It's all just, you know, things appear and you get teleported from here to there. You don't even have to interact, you know, iez in the restaurant. That's the future. You know, people, people feel awkward. They don't wanna, you know, go through the, the hard part of actually into engaging with people. And it is kind of a, a sad reality of, of how, how humans are constructed. But the problem is, humans don't know what's good for them. Unfortunately. If you, if you deny yourself the opportunity to have, to have social friction to engage with people, you're missing out on, on something that is essential to what it means to be human. It might be comfortable, you know, it's like not going to the gym in a way, you know, like you, you don't go to the gym or you don't do workout at all for a year. It's very comfortable. You're not doing anything hard. It's awesome. But then you barely move and maybe they'll, they'll have to, you know, get you out of your house to the crane eventually because you're, you're not, you're not doing the things that are essential to being human. And there's many of these things that we just kind of lost out on because, because of just simple comforts that the market economy has allowed us.

Vance Crowe [01:04:05] So this can get pretty nihilistic pretty quickly or pretty dark. What is something that has given you the experience of joy in the last little while?

Alex Kaschuta [01:04:15] My, my son? Yeah, absolutely. My son, my husband. Working in the garden. I dunno. Preparing food for, for the family, riding something. Even like, just meeting the people at the conference that I spoke at. It was really, really lovely. You know, going to dinner, meeting with people a lot. Everything that I've done that was social and, you know, my baby's christening was a wonderful day. Yeah. Just, you know, hanging out outside all of these things, a very much basic, nothing n no, nothing very meta, nothing very political, but it's, yeah, it's been definitely highlights of the last, last few months or years.

Vance Crowe [01:04:58] And my favorite question that you ask on subversive, which I'll, I'll ask you right now. What is an undervalued author or thinker or somebody that everybody should be paying attention to, but probably don't know about?

Alex Kaschuta [01:05:11] Man, I should probably think about this question more. Yeah, it's, let me think about what, what I've, I've read recently actually. Yeah, yeah. This has been a recommendation to

Vance Crowe [01:05:22] Fun. It could even be one of your podcast guests. You've had a lot. I mean

Alex Kaschuta [01:05:25] Oh yeah, yeah. This

Vance Crowe [01:05:25] Undervalued podcast guests,

Alex Kaschuta [01:05:27] I mean, undervalued podcast guests. They're, they're all wonderful. My podcast guests. I can, I can't, I can't pick favorites, but I have, I have a thinker that I think is, is really interesting. I've been just kind of researching it. 'cause thinking of writing a book, it's gonna take forever. Not coming out anytime soon, but it's kind of semi in the works. And I'm doing research for the book and it's a, a called, just called Penty Linka. And that's kind of what I'm, I'm reading now. And he is sometimes accused of being an eco fascist. He's got some, some crazy ideas, but I think his, his, his core vision of the world, you know, the idea that, you know, he has this, this concept of, you know, the mind of nature is driven by need, and the mind of, of the humans is driven by desire. And, you know, kind of nature is a very, it ha there's no excess in nature. Everything, you know, if, if there is enough, you know, water and, you know, source of hydrocarbons and mold will spring out and moss and everything, and there's no excess humans, you know, we have an, an unquenchable need and we tend to, we tend to have, you know, desires that, that are just very different from needs. You know, we, we don't, we don't console ourselves with the, with the bare minimum, which is kind of the way, the way in nature. And that kind of has a lot of consequences for, for ecology. Obviously this is his main concern, but, but also it kind of has, its its own philosophy built in.

Alex Kaschuta [01:07:02] So I'm kind of, this is kind of the, the space I'm exploring and yeah, I think he's a, he's an interesting person to look at. There's an audio book, actually, and the, the book is called Will Life Prevail, which is just a collection of essays. I don't think there's actually a conclusion. Man is pretty, is pretty hardcore on, on the, you know, apocalyptic visions of ecology. I don't necessarily put that much weight on that, but his, his philosophy and his perspective and being, he was a fisherman for I think 35 years in the Finnish fjords. Like very, yeah, very living in kind of like a Unabomber style hut, you know, man, men talk the talk and walk the walk. And he, yeah, he's, he is a very fascinating character. I think people should check him out.

Vance Crowe [01:07:45] Well, that's a, an unexpected recommendation. So for people that want to find out more about the Subversive podcast or follow you, where would they do that?

Alex Kaschuta [01:07:55] Yeah, for now, I am still on Twitter at Kahua. That's my last name. I have, you know, everything in, in my bio. And if you want to check out the podcast, I mean, we're in Patreon, essentially. The Patreon just gives you advanced access to the, the episodes. Most episodes come out in full everywhere. Just takes a bit of time. And if you type in these subversive podcasts with Kuchta, then all the links will be, will be on the internet.

Vance Crowe [01:08:25] Well, Alex Kuchta, thank you so much for coming on. Thank

Alex Kaschuta [01:08:28] You so much, Vance.